Ancient Rome, the state centred on the city of Rome. This article discusses the period from the founding of the city and the regal period, which began in 753 bc, through the events leading to the founding of the republic in 509 bc, the establishment of the empire in 27 bc, and the final eclipse of...

Displaying 101 - 200 of 283 results

Gaius Julius Civilis
Gaius Julius Civilis, Batavi chieftain and a Roman army officer who led a rebellion on the Rhine frontier against Roman rule in ad 69–70. His story is known only from Tacitus’ vivid account. Civilis was suspected of disloyalty by Aulus Vitellius when……

Gaius Julius Vindex
Gaius Julius Vindex, governor of the Roman province of Lugdunensis (east-central and northern Gaul) who led a revolt in Gaul against the emperor Nero. His rebellion, begun in March 68, was followed by other revolts in Spain, Africa, and Egypt and set……

Gaius Laelius
Gaius Laelius, Roman general and politician who contributed to Roman victory during the Second Punic War (218–201) between Rome and Carthage. Owing his political advancement to his friend, the renowned commander Scipio Africanus, Laelius accompanied Scipio……

Gaius Laelius Sapiens, the Younger
Gaius Laelius Sapiens, the Younger, Roman soldier and politician known chiefly as an orator and a friend of Scipio Aemilianus. Laelius appears as one of the speakers in Cicero’s De senectute (“On Old Age”), De amicitia (“On Friendship”; also called Laelius),……

Gaius Lutatius Catulus
Gaius Lutatius Catulus, Roman commander, victor in the final battle of the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage (264–241). As consul in 242, he blockaded the Sicilian cities of Lilybaeum and Drepanum with a fleet of 200 ships. On March 10, 241, the……

Gaius Maecenas
Gaius Maecenas, Roman diplomat, counsellor to the Roman emperor Augustus, and wealthy patron of such poets as Virgil and Horace. He was criticized by Seneca for his luxurious way of life. The birthplace of Maecenas is unrecorded, but his mother’s family,……

Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius, Roman general and politician, consul seven times (107, 104–100, 86 bce), who was the first Roman to illustrate the political support that a successful general could derive from the votes of his old army veterans. Gaius Marius was a strong……

Gaius Mucius Scaevola
Gaius Mucius Scaevola, legendary Roman hero who is said to have saved Rome (c. 509 bc) from conquest by the Etruscan king Lars Porsena. According to the legend, Mucius volunteered to assassinate Porsena, who was besieging Rome, but killed his victim’s……

Gaius Papirius Carbo
Gaius Papirius Carbo, Roman politician who supported the agrarian reforms of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus but later deserted the Gracchan party. As tribune in 131, Carbo carried a measure that extended voting by ballot to the enactment and repeal of laws.……

Gaius Scribonius Curio
Gaius Scribonius Curio, Roman statesman and orator, father of a noted politician of the same name. Curio opposed Saturninus in 100 bc, was tribune in 90 bc, and served in Sulla’s army in Greece against Archelaus, general of Mithradates, and as his legate……

Gaius Scribonius Curio
Gaius Scribonius Curio, Roman politician, partisan of Julius Caesar against Pompey. He was the son of a statesman and orator of the same name. Curio was elected tribune for the year 50 bc. When the Senate demanded that year that Caesar surrender his imperium……

Gaius Trebonius
Gaius Trebonius, Roman general and politician who had been one of Caesar’s most trusted lieutenants before becoming a member of the conspiracy that resulted in Caesar’s death. During his term as quaestor (financial magistrate) about 60 bc, Trebonius opposed……

Gaius Verres
Gaius Verres, Roman magistrate notorious for his misgovernment of Sicily. His trial exposed the extent of official corruption in the Roman provinces during the late republic. Verres was the son of an undistinguished senator. He became quaestor (financial……

Galba
Galba, Roman emperor for seven months (ad 68–69), whose administration was priggishly upright, though his advisers allegedly were corrupt. Galba was the son of the consul Gaius Sulpicius Galba and Mummia Achaica, and in addition to great wealth and ancient……

Galerius
Galerius, Roman emperor from 305 to 311, notorious for his persecution of Christians. Galerius was born of humble parentage and had a distinguished military career. On March 1, 293, he was nominated as caesar by the emperor Diocletian, who governed the……

Gallia Comata
Gallia Comata, (Latin: Long-haired Gaul, ) (Three Gauls), in Roman antiquity, the land of Gaul that included the three provinces of (1) Aquitania, bordered by the Bay of Biscay on the west and the Pyrenees on the south; (2) Celtica (or Gallia Lugdunensis),……

Gallic Wars
Gallic Wars, (58–50 bce), campaigns in which the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar conquered Gaul. Clad in the bloodred cloak he usually wore “as his distinguishing mark of battle,” Caesar led his troops to victories throughout the province, his major triumph……

Gaul
Gaul, the region inhabited by the ancient Gauls, comprising modern-day France and parts of Belgium, western Germany, and northern Italy. A Celtic race, the Gauls lived in an agricultural society divided into several tribes ruled by a landed class. A brief……

Gildo
Gildo, Moorish potentate who rebelled against Rome in 397–398. In 375 Gildo helped the Romans crush his brother Firmus, who was attempting to carve out an independent kingdom from a portion of Rome’s African provinces. As a reward, the Romans appointed……

Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus
Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, Roman general who became one of the chief partisans of Mark Antony after Antony defeated the assassins of Julius Caesar. With his father, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, he had been a member of the group that in 49 bc made an……

Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus
Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, legendary Roman hero of patrician descent who was said to have lived in the late 6th and early 5th centuries bc; the subject of Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus. According to tradition, he owed his surname to his bravery at the……

Gnaeus Papirius Carbo
Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, Roman general, leader of the forces of Gaius Marius in the civil war between Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In 87 he took part in Marius’ blockade of Rome, which was at that time held by pro-Sullan forces. Rome capitulated,……

Hesperus
Hesperus, in Greco-Roman mythology, the evening star; although initially considered to be the son of Eos (the Dawn) and the Titan Astraeus, he was later said to be the son or brother of Atlas. He was later identified with the morning star, Phosphorus,……

Hierapolis
Hierapolis, ancient Phrygian city in southwestern Turkey, about 6 miles (10 km) north of the ruins of Laodicea. Situated on the Coruh River, a tributary of the Buyuk Menderes (Maeander) River, it was probably established by Eumenes II of Pergamum in 190……

Hispania
Hispania, in Roman times, region comprising the Iberian Peninsula, now occupied by Portugal and Spain. The origins of the name are disputed. When the Romans took the peninsula from the Carthaginians (206 bce), they divided it into two provinces: Hispania……

Horatius Cocles
Horatius Cocles, Roman hero traditionally of the late 6th century bc but perhaps legendary, who first with two companions and finally alone defended the Sublician bridge (in Rome) against Lars Porsena and the entire Etruscan army, thereby giving the Romans……

Hortensia
Hortensia, daughter of the Roman orator Quintus Hortensius, known for her speech against the taxation of women without representation, related by the 1st-century-ad Roman historian Valerius Maximus and by the 2nd-century Greek historian Appian (Civil……

Italy
Italy, in Roman antiquity, the Italian Peninsula from the Apennines in the north to the “boot” in the south. In 42 bc Cisalpine Gaul, north of the Apennines, was added; and in the late 3rd century ad Italy came to include the islands of Sicily, Corsica,……

Italy
Italy, country of south-central Europe, occupying a peninsula that juts deep into the Mediterranean Sea. Italy comprises some of the most varied and scenic landscapes on Earth and is often described as a country shaped like a boot. At its broad top stand……

Jugurtha
Jugurtha, king of Numidia from 118 to 105, who struggled to free his North African kingdom from Roman rule. Jugurtha was the illegitimate grandson of Masinissa (d. 148), under whom Numidia had become a Roman ally, and the nephew of Masinissa’s successor,……

Julio-Claudian dynasty
Julio-Claudian dynasty, (ad 14–68), the four successors of Augustus, the first Roman emperor: Tiberius (reigned 14–37), Caligula (37–41), Claudius I (41–54), and Nero (54–68). It was not a direct bloodline. Augustus had been the great-nephew and adopted……

Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar, celebrated Roman general and statesman, the conqueror of Gaul (58–50 bce), victor in the civil war of 49–45 bce, and dictator (46–44 bce), who was launching a series of political and social reforms when he was assassinated by a group of……

Licinius
Licinius, Roman emperor from 308 to 324. Born of Illyrian peasant stock, Licinius advanced in the army and was suddenly elevated to the rank of augustus (November 308) by his friend Galerius, who had become emperor. Galerius hoped to have him rule the……

List of Roman emperors
This is a chronologically ordered list of Roman emperors. See also Roman Empire and ancient…

Livy
Livy, with Sallust and Tacitus, one of the three great Roman historians. His history of Rome became a classic in his own lifetime and exercised a profound influence on the style and philosophy of historical writing down to the 18th century. Little is……

Lixus
Lixus, ancient site located north of the modern seaport of Larache, Morocco, on the right bank of the Oued Loukkos (Lucus River). Originally settled by Phoenicians during the 7th century bc, it gradually grew in importance, later coming under Carthaginian……

Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus
Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, Roman general whose victory over the Macedonians at Pydna ended the Third Macedonian War (171–168 bc). Paullus’s father, a consul of the same name, had been killed fighting the Carthaginians at Cannae in 216. Praetor……

Lucius Afranius
Lucius Afranius, Roman general, a devoted adherent of Pompey the Great. Afranius’s hometown, Picenum, was a Pompeian stronghold. He served under Pompey against Sertorius and then held a praetorship and a command in a Gallic province, where he earned a……

Lucius Appuleius Saturninus
Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, Roman politician who, with Gaius Servilius Glaucia, opposed the Roman Senate from 103 to 100, at first with the cooperation of the prominent general Gaius Marius. Saturninus turned against the leaders of the Senate when, while……

Lucius Caecilius Metellus
Lucius Caecilius Metellus, Roman general during the First Punic War (264–241 bc). As consul in 251, Metellus decisively defeated the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal at Panormus (now Palermo, Sicily) by panicking the enemy’s elephants. Thereafter the image……

Lucius Cornelius Balbus
Lucius Cornelius Balbus, wealthy naturalized Roman, important in Roman politics in the last years of the republic. In 72 bc Pompey the Great conferred Roman citizenship on Balbus and his family for his services against the rebel Quintus Sertorius in Spain.……

Lucius Cornelius Cinna
Lucius Cornelius Cinna, leader of the Marian party in Rome who opposed Lucius Cornelius Sulla. After serving in the Social War (90–88), Cinna became consul in 87. When Sulla left Rome to fight Mithradates VI, king of Pontus, in the East, Cinna repealed……

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, a leader of the Optimates (conservative senatorial aristocracy) in the last years of the Roman Republic. Ahenobarbus repeatedly resisted the designs of the powerful politicians and generals Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great,……

Lucius Junius Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus, a legendary figure, who is held to have ousted the despotic Etruscan king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus from Rome in 509 and then to have founded the Roman Republic. He is said to have been elected to the first consulship in that year……

Lucius Licinius Crassus
Lucius Licinius Crassus, lawyer and politician who is usually considered to be one of the two greatest Roman orators before Cicero, the other being Marcus Antonius (143–87). Both men are vividly portrayed in Cicero’s De oratore (55 bce). Crassus launched……

Lucius Licinius Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus, Roman general who fought Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus from 74 to 66 bc. He served in the Social War (91–87) under Lucius Cornelius Sulla. As quaestor in 88, he was the only one of Sulla’s officers to take part in his march……

Lucius Mummius
Lucius Mummius, Roman statesman and general who crushed the uprising of the Achaean Confederacy against Roman rule in Greece and destroyed the ancient city of Corinth. As praetor and proconsul in 153–152, Mummius defeated the rebellious Lusitanians in……

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Roman statesman who gained fame for his selfless devotion to the republic in times of crisis and for giving up the reins of power when the crisis was over. Although he was a historical figure, his career has been much embellished……

Lucretia
Lucretia, legendary heroine of ancient Rome. According to tradition, she was the beautiful and virtuous wife of the nobleman Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. Her tragedy began when she was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the……

Lucy Myers Wright Mitchell
Lucy Myers Wright Mitchell, archaeologist who, though self-taught, became an internationally recognized authority on ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. Lucy Wright was the daughter of a missionary to the Nestorian Christians in Persia. In 1860 she was……

Lugdunensis
Lugdunensis, a province of the Roman Empire, one of the “Three Gauls” called the Gallia Comata. It extended from the capital of Lugdunum (modern Lyon) northwest to all the land between the Seine and the Loire rivers to Brittany and the Atlantic Ocean.……

Macedonian Wars
Macedonian Wars, (3rd and 2nd centuries bc), four conflicts between the ancient Roman Republic and the kingdom of Macedonia. They caused increasing involvement by Rome in Greek affairs and helped lead to Roman domination of the entire eastern Mediterranean……

Majorian
Majorian, Western Roman emperor from 457 to 461, the only man to hold that office in the 5th century who had some claim to greatness. Born of a distinguished military family, he served under the master of soldiers Aetius and helped overthrow the emperor……

Manius Curius Dentatus
Manius Curius Dentatus, Roman general, conqueror of the Samnites and victor against Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Dentatus was born into a plebeian family that was possibly Sabine in origin. As consul in 290 bc, he gained a decisive victory over the Samnites,……

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus
Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, a leader of the Optimates (conservative senatorial aristocrats) and one of the most influential men in the Roman government about 100 bc. Marcus Tullius Cicero, in his speech “In Defense of Fonteius,” wrote that the world was……

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus
Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, quaestor and proquaestor to Gnaeus Pompey in the third war (74–63) between Rome and King Mithradates of Pontus (in northeastern Anatolia). Scaurus was the son of a powerful politician of the same name. In 64, Scaurus marched to……

Marcus Atilius Regulus
Marcus Atilius Regulus, Roman general and statesman whose career, greatly embellished by legend, was seen by the Romans as a model of heroic endurance. Regulus served as consul in 267 and 256. In the latter year (during the First Punic War, 264–241) he……

Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (161–180 ce), best known for his Meditations on Stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius has symbolized for many generations in the West the Golden Age of the Roman Empire. When he was born, his paternal grandfather was already……

Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius
Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius, officer in the Roman military service who created a short-lived independent state in Britain. Born in Menapia, a district between the Scheldt and Meuse rivers (now in Belgium), Carausius was a pilot by profession. He……

Marcus Caelius Rufus
Marcus Caelius Rufus, Roman politician and close friend of Cicero. He is possibly also the Rufus whom the poet Catullus accused of stealing his mistress Clodia. At her instigation Caelius, who had deserted her, was prosecuted for vis (“violent acts”)……

Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus
Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, Roman politician who, as consul with Julius Caesar in 59 bc, worked with the senatorial conservatives against Caesar’s agrarian legislation. He was married to Porcia, a daughter of Cato the Younger. When Bibulus was prevented……

Marcus Claudius Marcellus
Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Roman general who captured Syracuse during the Second Punic War (218–201). Although his successes have been exaggerated by the historian Livy, Marcellus deserved his sobriquet, “the sword of Rome.” In his first consulship (222)……

Marcus Claudius Marcellus
Marcus Claudius Marcellus, leading Optimate (conservative senator) and an uncompromising opponent of Julius Caesar. As consul, Marcellus attempted to remove Caesar from his army command on March 1, 50, but he was outmaneuvered by the pro-Caesarian tribune……

Marcus Curtius
Marcus Curtius, a legendary hero of ancient Rome. According to legend, in 362 bc a deep chasm opened in the Roman Forum. The seers declared that the pit would never close until Rome’s most valuable possession was thrown into it. Claiming that nothing……

Marcus Furius Camillus
Marcus Furius Camillus, Roman soldier and statesman who came to be honoured after the sack of Rome by the Gauls (c. 390) as the second founder of the city. Camillus celebrated four triumphs and served five times as dictator of Rome. His greatest victory……

Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus, Roman politician, one of the leaders in the conspiracy that assassinated Julius Caesar in 44 bce. Brutus was the son of Marcus Junius Brutus (who was treacherously killed by Pompey the Great in 77) and Servilia (who later became……

Marcus Licinius Crassus
Marcus Licinius Crassus, politician who in the last years of the Roman Republic formed the so-called First Triumvirate with Julius Caesar and Pompey to challenge effectively the power of the Senate. His death led to the outbreak of the Civil War between……

Marcus Livius Drusus
Marcus Livius Drusus, Roman politician, tribune with Gaius Gracchus in 122 bc who undermined Gracchus’ program of economic and political reform by proposing reforms that were even more appealing to the populace but that he evidently did not seriously……

Marcus Livius Drusus
Marcus Livius Drusus, son of the tribune of 122 bc by the same name; as tribune in 91, Drusus made the last nonviolent civilian attempt to reform the government of republican Rome. Drusus began by proposing colonial and agrarian reform bills. He attempted……

Marcus Porcius Cato
Marcus Porcius Cato, Roman statesman, orator, and the first Latin prose writer of importance. He was noted for his conservative and anti-Hellenic policies, in opposition to the phil-Hellenic ideals of the Scipio family. Cato was born of plebeian stock……

Marcus Porcius Cato
Marcus Porcius Cato, great-grandson of Cato the Censor and a leader of the Optimates (conservative senatorial aristocracy) who tried to preserve the Roman Republic against power seekers, in particular Julius Caesar. On the death of his parents, Cato was……

Marcus Tullius Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer who vainly tried to uphold republican principles in the final civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic. His writings include books of rhetoric, orations, philosophical and political……

Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus
Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus, Roman aristocrat, public servant, orator, and patron of literature. Messalla was proscribed by the Second Triumvirate in 43, but he escaped to the camp of Brutus and Cassius and after their defeat at Philippi (42) went……

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, powerful deputy of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. He was chiefly responsible for the victory over Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 bc, and during Augustus’ reign he suppressed rebellions, founded colonies, and administered……

Mark Antony
Mark Antony, Roman general under Julius Caesar and later triumvir (43–30 bce), who, with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, was defeated by Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) in the last of the civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic. Mark Antony was……

Maximinus
Maximinus, first soldier who rose through the ranks to become Roman emperor (235–238). His reign marked the beginning of a half century of civil war in the empire. Originally from Thrace, he is said to have been a shepherd before enlisting in the army.……

Misenum
Misenum, ancient port of Campania, Italy, located about 3 miles (5 km) south of Baiae at the west end of the Gulf of Puteoli (Pozzuoli). Virgil in the Aeneid says the town was named after Aeneas’s trumpeter, Misenus, who was buried there. Until the end……

Moesia
Moesia, province of the Roman Empire, in the southeastern Balkans in what is now Serbia, part of Macedonia, and part of Bulgaria. Its first recorded people were the Moesi, a Thracian tribe. The lower Danube River was the province’s northern border, with……

Monumentum Ancyranum
Monumentum Ancyranum, inscription engraved soon after ad 14 on the walls of the temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra (modern Ankara, Tur.), capital of the Roman province of Galatia, giving the Latin text and official Greek paraphrase of the official……

Narbonensis
Narbonensis, ancient Roman province that lay between the Alps, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Cévennes Mountains. It comprised what is now southeastern France. The area first entered ancient history when the Greek colony of Massilia (modern Marseille)……

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus
Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, younger brother of Tiberius (who later became emperor) and commander of the Roman forces that occupied the German territory between the Rhine and Elbe rivers from 12 to 9 bc. Drusus was born shortly after the divorce of……

Noricum
Noricum, region of Europe north of what is now Italy, roughly comprising modern central Austria and parts of Bavaria, Ger. Noricum was originally a kingdom controlled by a Celtic confederacy that dominated an earlier Illyrian population. It reached its……

Numa Pompilius
Numa Pompilius, second of the seven kings who, according to Roman tradition, ruled Rome before the founding of the Republic (c. 509 bc). Numa is said to have reigned from 715 to 673. He is credited with the formulation of the religious calendar and with……

Numantia
Numantia, a Celtiberian town (now Garray), near modern Soria in Spain on the upper Douro (Duero) River. Founded on the site of earlier settlements by Iberians who penetrated the Celtic highlands about 300 bc, it later formed the centre of Celtiberian……

Numidia
Numidia, under the Roman Republic and Empire, a part of Africa north of the Sahara, the boundaries of which at times corresponded roughly to those of modern western Tunisia and eastern Algeria. Its earliest inhabitants were divided into tribes and clans.……

Optimates and Populares
Optimates and Populares, (Latin: respectively, “Best Ones,” or “Aristocrats”, and “Demagogues,” or “Populists”), two principal patrician political groups during the later Roman Republic from about 133 to 27 bc. The members of both groups belonged to the……

Orestes
Orestes, regent of Italy and minister to Attila, king of the Huns. He obtained control of the Roman army in 475 and made his own son Romulus, nicknamed Augustulus, the last Western Roman emperor. Of Germanic origin, Orestes’ family had been Roman citizens……

Otho
Otho, Roman emperor from January to April 69. Otho was born into a family that had held the consulship under Augustus. He married Poppaea Sabina, but when the emperor Nero took Poppaea for his mistress—she later became his wife—Otho was sent from Rome……

Pacorus
Pacorus, Parthian prince, son of King Orodes II (reigned c. 55/54–37/36 bc); he apparently never ascended the throne. In the summer of 51 bc Pacorus was sent to invade Syria with an army commanded by Osaces, an older warrior. Osaces, however, was killed……

Pannonia
Pannonia, province of the Roman Empire, corresponding to present-day western Hungary and parts of eastern Austria, as well as portions of several Balkan states, primarily Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia (Vojvodina). The Pannonians were mainly Illyrians,……

Pergamon Museum
Pergamon Museum, art museum in Berlin, Germany, that contains three separate museums: the Collection of Classical Antiquities (Antikensammlung), the Museum of the Ancient Near East (Vorderasiatisches Museum), and the Museum of Islamic Art (Museum für……

Peutinger Table
Peutinger Table, copy of a Roman map, made in 1265 by a monk of Colmar (Alsace) on 12 sheets of parchment. Eleven of the sheets are now in the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. The dimensions are 268 by 13 13 inches (6.82 by 0.34 metres). The copy was found……

Phraates IV
Phraates IV, king of Parthia (reigned c. 37–2 bc) who murdered his father, Orodes II, and his brothers to secure the throne. In 36 the Romans under Mark Antony attacked Parthia, penetrating through Armenia into Media Atropatene. Phraates, however, defeated……

Pietas
Pietas, in Roman religion, personification of a respectful and faithful attachment to gods, country, and relatives, especially parents. Pietas had a temple at Rome, dedicated in 181 bc, and was often represented on coins as a female figure carrying a……

Pisidia
Pisidia, ancient region of southern Asia Minor, located north of Pamphylia and west of Isauria and Cilicia. Most of the district was composed of the abrupt, north–south-trending limestone ranges of the Taurus Mountains, providing refuge for a lawless……

Polybius
Polybius, Greek statesman and historian who wrote of the rise of Rome to world prominence. Polybius was the son of Lycortas, a distinguished Achaean statesman, and he received the upbringing considered appropriate for a son of rich landowners. His youthful……

Pompeii
Pompeii, preserved ancient Roman city in Campania, Italy, 14 miles (23 km) southeast of Naples, at the southeastern base of Mount Vesuvius. It was built on a spur formed by a prehistoric lava flow to the north of the mouth of the Sarnus (modern Sarno)……

Pompey the Great
Pompey the Great, one of the great statesmen and generals of the late Roman Republic, a triumvir (61–54 bce) who was an associate and later an opponent of Julius Caesar. He was initially called Magnus (“the Great”) by his troops in Africa (82–81 bce),……

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